Editing Backstamp

{{Short description|Postal marking}}
{{refimprove|date=November 2018}}
{{For|Backstamps on porcelain|Factory mark}}
[[Image:Cover Canada 1932 Rae air back.jpg|upright=1.25|thumb|This reverse of a 1932 cover sent from Rae in the [[Northwest Territories]] (now [[Behchoko]]) to [[Toms River, New Jersey]], has a Toms River backstamp.]]

In [[philately]] a '''backstamp''' is a [[postmark]] on the back of a [[cover (philately)|letter]] showing a post office or station through which the item passed in transit.<ref>{{cite web |last=Scheer |first=Frank |title=Mute oval canceling device handstamp |publisher=[[National Postal Museum]] |date=18 April 2006 |url=http://arago.si.edu/record_52376_img_1.html |accessdate=23 January 2016 }}</ref> The office of delivery may also backstamp a cover and this type of mark is known as a '''receiving mark'''. It provided a way to track the route of a letter, simplifying the overall process of mailing.

Backstamps are often applied as documentation of transit times, lengthy ones in the case of ocean crossings or short ones in the case of [[airmail]] flights. [[Registered mail]] is often backstamped in order to show the [[chain of custody]].

Mail that has had complex routings can have a dozen or more backstamps. Although such covers may look positively blackened with the overlapping marks, they are not common and so are highly valued by collectors of [[postal history]], being described as "well travelled".

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Philatelic terminology]]
[[Category:Postal markings]]


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